the following is a speech i gave on friday to a group of 25 students in my speaking with confidence elective.

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What I want to talk to you about today is an issue that has been close to the core of my reality for a very long time. It is one that I have been drawn to in media reports and in all honestly has occupied so much space in my mind that I have at times questioned my own sanity. It also happens to be a topic that no one really wants to talk about.

My name is Bryant and I experienced sexual abuse over a three year period between the ages of 6 and 9.

I do not see myself as either a victim of or as survivor of sexual abuse, but simply as one who has experienced it, all the while being acutely aware of its impact and how it has shaped the reality I have experienced.

I could talk for the next hour about the impact of this experience in my life, but that is not what I am here to do today. I am looking to start a conversation that will hopefully allow you to think about having a conversation which could move us as a society to have a larger conversation because in my experience as far as the subject of Childhood Sexual Abuse goes, we have either been not having a conversation or have been having the wrong conversation. Continue Reading